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Accountability sinks

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Re: Accountability sinks

#151

Post by lesuorac »

627467 wrote: post #141
larsrc wrote: post #133

I've long thought that that is one of the main functions of corporations. There's a reason they're called limited liability. The fact that you can conjure up new companies at a whim makes it easy to shuffle responsibility into an obscure corner. This is a strong reason that corporations should not be considered people. People are long-lived entities with accountability and you can't just create or destroy them at wil…

I agree with the feeling, but State orgs are effectively eternal (think the various level of government) and still great at diffusing accountability to various scapegoats

State orgs (and federal ones) often have length processes before they can do stuff though.

As well as after they do something there is typically a recourse path provided by that org for you to protest their decisions and if that doesn't resolve favorable you can also sue them.

Which differs from the article because the corporation doesn't provide any protest path nor did it have to publish any memo/etc describing how they're going to downsize cleaning for cost-savings. But you can still sue them (but good luck showing damages over an unclean room)!

Re: Accountability sinks

#152

Post by scrollaway »

jhrmnn wrote: post #149
eloisius wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience in Germany about a year ago. Train stations are mostly self-service now. The ticket kiosk ate my €50 and promptly rebooted. It didn’t print a receipt or anything. The only human I could find was a security guard. He told me to call the number on a sticker on the machine. The person who answered couldn’t speak English. My €50 is out there somewhere but it would cost me more than that to trac…

> The person who answered couldn’t speak English. It sounds like this was the main point of failure. I’m not sure it can be considered an error in the system. I’d consider the risk inherent in traveling in a country without knowing its language.

Germany is the only country in which I’ve had 112 (emergency services) hang up on me because they couldn’t speak English.

It’s worse than France in this regard.

Re: Accountability sinks

#153

Post by jhrmnn »

scrollaway wrote: post #152
jhrmnn wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The person who answered couldn’t speak English. It sounds like this was the main point of failure. I’m not sure it can be considered an error in the system. I’d consider the risk inherent in traveling in a country without knowing its language.

Germany is the only country in which I’ve had 112 (emergency services) hang up on me because they couldn’t speak English. It’s worse than France in this regard.

Sure, that’s bad, and a service dealing with train ticket machine failures not available in English isn’t as bad.

Re: Accountability sinks

#154

Post by lazide »

KronisLV wrote: post #118
lucianbr wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of accountability is to deter harmful activity by ensuring actions/decisions somewhere result in consequences What I read is yes, the point is revenge. If I can offer you a different way of preventing harmful activity, apparently you're not interested. There has to be some unpleasant consequences inflicted, you insist on it. I think you should reconsider.

I think they’re just right in this case. Suppose I’m a bad actor that creates an unfair algorithm that overcharges the clients of my company. Eventually it’s discovered. The algorithm could be fixed, the servers decommissioned, whatever, but I’ve already won. If the people who requested the algorithm be made in that way, if the people who implemented it or ran it see no consequences, there’s absolutely nothing preven…

One could even argue (from a raw individual utility perspective - aka selfish) that if the person/people who did that suffered no negative consequences, they’d be fools to not do it again elsewhere.

The evolutionary function certainly encourages it, correct?

Ignoring that means that not applying consequences makes one actually culpable in the bad behavior occurring.

Especially if nothing changed re: rules or enforcement, etc.

Re: Accountability sinks

#155

Post by someoneiam »

bojan wrote: post #128
larodi wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a sad experience and I would definitely try to chase them robots. Sadly even though German public transport fascinates with its ease of use and quality, though when it comes to human service you can find yourself in peculiar position. And particularly if you are not German and happen to be in one of those international cities there where Germans are fed up with visitor. You waive goodbye to your 50€ and keep a…

It's not that they don't want to have people, it's that there are no people. Germany, as most of other countries in Europe, has an aging population and the workforce is hard to find. So all these "easy" things that can get automated, do get automated, oftentimes indeed at the price of quality of service in exceptional situations.

Well, they say that, but in my experience at least, that is just conjured up as a more palatable explanation after the fact. While I do think that a certain, even significant, amount of automation is good, there is also a large mass of unemployed that can undoubtedly be trained to fill these "human interaction" kind of roles (support). This workforce is still not hard to find at all. We just don't want to do that - there is not a single western country left that has low unemployment as its key prerogative.

Re: Accountability sinks

#156

Post by InsideOutSanta »

larsrc wrote: post #133

I've long thought that that is one of the main functions of corporations. There's a reason they're called limited liability. The fact that you can conjure up new companies at a whim makes it easy to shuffle responsibility into an obscure corner. This is a strong reason that corporations should not be considered people. People are long-lived entities with accountability and you can't just create or destroy them at wil…

Yeah, this dysfunction is not a bug, it's the feature. In some ways, it's useful, because it allows positive risk-taking that could not be taken if anyone was actually held (or even just felt) accountable. But at this point, as a society, we've shifted too far towards enabling accountability-free behavior from corporations.

I think a good example of the dichotomy here is Starlink. On one hand, it's an incredibly useful service that often has a positive impact. On the other hand, a private corporation is just polluting our low earth orbit with thousands of satellites.

It's not clear to me where exactly the right balance for something like this should be, but I do think that as of today, we're too far on the lessez-faire side.

Re: Accountability sinks

#157

Post by InsideOutSanta »

lesuorac wrote: post #151
627467 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the feeling, but State orgs are effectively eternal (think the various level of government) and still great at diffusing accountability to various scapegoats

State orgs (and federal ones) often have length processes before they can do stuff though. As well as after they do something there is typically a recourse path provided by that org for you to protest their decisions and if that doesn't resolve favorable you can also sue them. Which differs from the article because the corporation doesn't provide any protest path nor did it have to publish any memo/etc describing how…

"the corporation doesn't provide any protest path"

This. The problem with "voting with your wallet" is that you can't vote "no", you can only vote "yes" or abstain from voting altogether.

Re: Accountability sinks

#158

Post by atoav »

rwmj wrote: post #146
atoav wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The buck has to stop somewhere and a human has to be responsible for things.

Oh sweet summer child. Companies are frequently structured and created in multiple jurisdictions to obscure beneficial ownership, responsibility, profits and taxes.

What I said is how it should be, not how it is.

Re: Accountability sinks

#159

Post by aziaziazi »

scrollaway wrote: post #152
jhrmnn wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The person who answered couldn’t speak English. It sounds like this was the main point of failure. I’m not sure it can be considered an error in the system. I’d consider the risk inherent in traveling in a country without knowing its language.

Germany is the only country in which I’ve had 112 (emergency services) hang up on me because they couldn’t speak English. It’s worse than France in this regard.

Yes, but it’s still fine to have a customer service only answering in the official language. The chance are high that a random German speaks english so you’ll probably be good but if that’s not the case, blaming the company seems unfair to me.
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